


Dancing with the Dead

by clgfanfic



Category: Soldier of Fortune Inc.
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-12
Updated: 2012-11-12
Packaged: 2017-11-18 11:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/560669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clgfanfic/pseuds/clgfanfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing scene from "Surgical Strike."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dancing with the Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published in the zine Ouch! #9 and later in Watch Your Six #2 with Mary Fallon Zane.

          C.J. wasn't really sure when _he_ arrived, if it was during the moment when he was twitching under the charge from the cattle prod, or if it was when they were beating him.  Not that it really mattered, but his incurable sense of curiosity gnawed at the question, worried over it even as they continued to torture him.  He wanted to tell them that they were wasting their time, but he couldn't find his voice.  He had lost it when the other one arrived.

          Still, he could almost hear himself talking, though what he was saying was a complete mystery.  Jokes, he decided, he was probably telling jokes.  He had always used humor to cover up his fear.  Sometimes he stopped talking and just screamed, but the piercing sound evaporated in his ears, leaving his mind in silence – silence and the echo of _his_ voice.  How was it possible?

          The images of his tormentors slowly faded, replaced by a dark misty nothing.  It felt like he was floating, or maybe flying, if he could just control wherever he was going.  But he didn't want to control his movement.  He didn't want to expend the effort.  It was comfortable and peaceful wherever he was now, and he just wanted to relax and enjoy the respite.

          "Come on, Jamie-boy," the other said.  "You're not giving up, are you?"

          C.J. ignored the voice rolling through the mist, trying to close his non-existent eyes.  He had no body in this place.  No arms, legs, body, head, eyes, ears…  He had nothing, except himself.  He could never escape himself.

          "Leave me alone," he thought.  "You're dead."

          A form began to coalesce out of shadow and mist, swirling into shape.  "Yes," the form said, "I'm dead."

          "Guess that means I am too," C.J. replied, distracted by the thought.  This wasn't what he'd expected.  It wasn't as hot as he'd thought it would be.  And it didn't smell like sulfur.  And it was way too peaceful for Hell.

          "No, Jamie-boy, you're not dead."

          "Don't call me that," C.J. snapped, looking back at the form.  Danny.  "You know I hate that."

          "Why?"

          C.J. tried to push away from the man, but he had no arms.  He continued to float in the empty space, his dead brother staring intently at him.  _What the hell_ , he thought, _there's no harm in telling him the truth now_.

          "Da used to call me that.  I hated it, because I hated him."

          Danny floated closer.  "You and Da were like a couple of bulls, always butting heads."

          "He loved you," C.J. accused.

          "He loved his own sense of importance, and his drink… nothing more than that," Danny corrected.

          C.J. knew the ghost was telling him the truth, but it was an old wound between them and he couldn't stop himself from picking at the bloody scab.  "You didn't see him after you died.  He loved you."

          Danny shrugged.

          "Why are you here, Danny?" C.J. asked, wishing he could swim through the mist, wishing he could find his way back to his pain.  At least pain was something he understood.  He'd never really understood his relationship with his older brother.

          "Competition," Danny said.  "That's what our relationship was always about.  You competing with me for Da's attention, me competing with you for mum's love."

          Truth again.  C.J. was quickly beginning to dislike this dream.  Truth was something he preferred to avoid – at least this kind of truth.  "It was more than that," he countered, arguing just for the sake of arguing.  Nothing changed, not even after death, it was still the same old dance.

          Danny floated closer, almost within arm's length.  If he had arms C.J. might have considered slugging the man.  He wanted him to go away.

          "No, it was that.  We started out competing for our parents' affections, and we ended up competing in everything we did."

          When C.J. made no reply, Danny asked, "Why did you join the SAS?  Why go through that hell three times until you got in?"

          "I—"  C.J. stopped, the lie dying before it could even take shape.  "I wanted to prove I was better than you were."

          "To Da."

          "To him," C.J. admitted, "and mum, and you… and myself."

          "So, what happened?"

          C.J. felt a wave of pain break over his consciousness, more agonizing than anything the Libyans were doing to his body.  "I was wrong."

          "Wrong?"

          "You were stronger than I was, Danny," he admitted.  "I broke, you didn't.  You were the better man.  And when I got home… they knew.  They knew it should've been me who died here the first time, not you."

          In a rush images of their capture and imprisonment assailed C.J.'s consciousness.  He had tried to get the units to pull back, but Danny wanted to push forward, and his marines agreed.  So they pressed the assault… and were captured.

          "You didn't trust me," C.J. accused.  "I told you we should pull out."

          "I couldn't," Danny replied.  "By then it was like a spontaneous reaction.  You said right, I had to say left."

          "Why?" C.J. demanded.  "Do you know how many men died—"

          "I know, Chris, I know."

Danny's pain scraped over C.J.'s consciousness.  "So you're telling me you pushed forward just because I wanted us to pull back?"

"Yes."  The admission was mournful.

"You… bloody sod."  Anger flowed from C.J., wrapping his brother in stinging tendrils of red-tinged mist.  Danny writhed under the touch.

Shock dampened the anger and the red mist faded away.

"I'm sorry," C.J. said.  "I don't want to hurt you, Danny."

The man smiled sadly.  "Yes, Chris, you do, and I don't blame you.  I wanted to hurt you, too – for living when I died."

"But that's just it," C.J. argued, "you died.  I lived because I talked.  I told them what they wanted to know and plenty they didn't."

"How many men did they torture?" Danny asked.

C.J. paused.  It was a question he'd never asked himself.  "I— I don't know."

"Three," Danny answered for him.  "You, me, and the sergeant major."

"Why?" C.J. asked.  "Why did they pick us?"

"The sergeant major told them we were brothers.  They thought that one of us would break to save the other."

"And they were right," C.J. moaned.  "I broke.  I told them what they wanted to know."

"You were cleared by a board of inquiry, Chris.  The SAS, the Royal Marines, they said you did the best you could under the circumstances."

"But I wasn't as strong as you!"

"Yes, Chris, you were," Danny argued.  "You lived!  It took strength to keep on fighting them.  I couldn't.  I gave up and I died."

"But you didn't tell them what they wanted to know!"

"Because I couldn't, you bleeding wally shitface!  I wanted to tell them, but I couldn't.  I was too frightened.  I did the only thing I could, I ran away in my mind and hid behind my name, rank, and serial number.  I stopped eating and drinking, I—"

"They fed you?" C.J. demanded.

"Yes."

"You bloody bastard!" C.J. cried.  "They starved us!"

"Because they were trying to break you!  They knew I was broken, that I couldn't give them what they wanted."

C.J. felt himself rocked by the potency of his own emotions.  Truth.  "Danny," he said, his mouth-less voice still sounding choked.  "We both broke."  There was no reply.  "And we both resisted as best we could, as long as we could."

"Do you believe that?"

"Yes," C.J. whispered.  "I do."  And with that came the realization that they would not break him this time.  He would not tell them about Shepherd and the others.  They might kill him, but he wouldn't talk, and he wouldn't kill himself.  He would try to survive.  He would fight until help arrived or they grew angry and shot him.

He jerked as guilt and anger twisted out of his spirit body.  The emotions floated like smoke rings in the fog, dissolving into the mist like they had never existed.  A new lightness filled his being and he looked at his brother's ghost with new understanding.  "Danny…"

The specter smiled sadly.  "I know, Chris, I know.  We were so bloody stupid."

"The Major told me that everyone has a limit.  Sooner or later we all break, Danny."

"And I reached my limit before you did."

"Maybe, maybe not," C.J. comforted.  "We just handled it differently.  We handled it like we always had."

Danny looked slightly confused.

"You always dealt with things by yourself.  You'd pull in, get quiet and think it through.  I always dealt with things by running off at the mouth."

The ghost smiled, still sad, but less so.  "Chris, I just wanted you to know, you're my brother, my little brother, and I love you.  I always have.  I always will."

C.J. felt his non-existent throat tighten.  "I know, Danny.  And I hope you know that I always loved you, too.  If I didn't I wouldn't have wanted to make you proud of me."

"I was always proud of you, Chris."

"I just wish Da had been proud of both of us."

"He was," Danny said.  "In his own way, he was.  He just didn't know how to show it.  And he was always harder on you than he was on me – I know that.  That's why mum took your side."

"But she loved you, too."

Danny nodded.

"Why didn't we talk like this before?  Why now?"

"I don't know, Jamie-boy.  But as for why now, it's because I want you to live."

C.J. smiled thinly.  "I'll live, Danny, I promise you that.  And I won't talk this time.  I won't give the bastards the satisfaction."

"Good lad," Danny replied.  "But I can see the truth in your eyes.  You won't talk because you think that if you do you'll dishonor my memory."

"That and I'd dishonor myself.  Not again.  Never again."

"You friends will come for you.  They'll save you."

"I know," C.J. said, and he meant it.

The misty fog began to swirl more rapidly, growing thicker and more viscous.  Danny's image began to distort and fade.  C.J. felt himself being pulled along by some unseen force that carried him away from his brother.

"Danny!"

"It's all right, Jamie-boy.  You're going home.  Remember, I love you!"

"Danny!"

In a blinding flash of light C.J. fell for what felt like a lifetime.  He slammed into his body, jerking from the force of the impact.  He was dangling off the floor, his wrists bound and chained to the ceiling.  They were still working him over.  It took him a moment to realize that he was talking, something about a camel in a bar, but he had no idea where his subconscious was taking the tale.  They were talking to him, and he was still talking, but he couldn't hear the words.  He was aware of something else, a presence.

The lights went off.  Shepherd and the others had arrived.

 

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

 

Back home in California, C.J. spent a few days in the hospital, recovering from his beating.  The others dropped by, each of them visiting for short time, but he made it abundantly clear that he wanted to spend some time alone.  He needed the silence to cry and to sort through what had happened to him.

 _I was dancing with the dead_ , he concluded.  But it had been a sweet waltz that had left him feeling more whole than he had in years.  Even the vague, nagging desire for a drink was gone for the first time since Danny's death.  He had finally found some peace.

That morning they finally released him.  Rather than call for a ride, he took a cab back to Hermosa Beach.  The driver pulled up outside the Silver Star Hotel, but C.J. didn't get out.  "I changed my mind," he said.  "Can you drop me off at the strip mall down the street?"

"Sure," the driver replied, pulling back into traffic.

At the line of shops just off the beach, C.J. paid his fare, then crossed the parking lot and entered a Pier One store.  After searching for several minutes he found what he needed.  He paid, then stopped at a local café for some coffee.  Taking his cup with him, he took his time walking the seven blocks back to the Silver Star.

Benny Ray's red Dodge Ram was parked outside, but Shepherd's 'Vette was gone and Margo's and Chance's cars were also missing.

He pulled the door open and started down the stairs to the basement.

"Hey," Benny Ray said softly as they passed on the steps.

A moment later the sniper stopped and turned, catching C.J. on the bottom step.  "You okay, amigo?" he asked, the concern in his voice surprising the Brit.

C.J. stopped as well, looking over his shoulder.  "Yeah," he replied, offering the man a thin smile.  Another flash of truth rushed through him.  Benny Ray reminded him of Danny – strong, quiet and intense.  And there was always a tension between them.  He wondered briefly if that would disappear like the ghost that had haunted his thoughts in Libya.

He watched Benny Ray study him for a moment, then the sniper nodded and returned the smile.  Turning, he completed his climb to the door and disappeared.

C.J. listened to the pick-up's motor turn over, then heard Benny Ray pull away.

Alone now, C.J. crossed the room and set his coffee down on an end-table, then removed the small frame from the bag he'd carried from the store.  With purposeful motions he inserted the small photo of Danny and himself in their uniforms that he'd carried in his wallet for years, then fitted in the back and secured it with the small tabs attached to the frame.  He set the photo down next to the coffee cup, then stood and headed to the long workbench where the phone sat.  It was time to lay other ghosts to rest at last, too.

He picked up the phone and dialed England.  "Mum?" he asked when a older woman asked.  "Yeah, it's me.  Look, I wanted to call you and Da.  It's about Danny…"

The End


End file.
